(TheLastPatriotNews.com) – A former top executive from Twitter appeared before the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday, where she acknowledged the company made a mistake in suppressing a news story published by The Post in October 2020.
The story was related to Hunter Biden’s laptop and was considered a bombshell by many.
Vijaya Gadde, who was fired as Twitter’s policy director in October, received a severance package worth $12.5 million.
In her testimony, she confessed that Twitter censored the story largely due to photos from Hunter’s laptop, which were “suspected of having been obtained through hacking.”
Gadde said that Twitter had developed a policy in 2018 to prevent the platform from becoming a hub for hacked materials. However, the company failed to recognize the impact of this policy on the freedom of the press.
Yoel Roth, the former Twitter director of trust and safety, also testified and stated that Twitter made a mistake by blocking The Post’s reporting and locking the newspaper out of its accounts.
The Republican majority of the committee plans to investigate any evidence of “collusion” between the FBI and Twitter to censor the story.
On the other hand, James Baker, former Twitter attorney, denied any “unlawful collusion” between the social network and the US government. Baker, who was the FBI general counsel before joining Twitter in June 2020, stated that he was not aware of any effort to do anything unethical or unlawful related to the Hunter Biden laptop situation while he was at Twitter.
Democrats, however, tried to redirect the discussion to focus on Twitter’s role in restricting speech ahead of the Capitol riot in January 2021. The hearing is being held by the House Oversight Committee as one of its first acts, while other committees are preparing to investigate possible misconduct by the FBI and intelligence agencies.
Little is known about the FBI’s direct role in the censorship of the laptop story by platforms like Twitter and Facebook. However, Republicans point to information already available, some of which was released by Elon Musk, the new owner of Twitter. According to a document released by Musk, the FBI paid Twitter $3.5 million from October 2019 to February 2021 for processing its moderation requests.
The laptop revelations raised questions about possible corruption and conflicts of interest in foreign affairs.
The first article from The Post revealed that an executive from a Ukrainian energy company, Burisma, had thanked Hunter for the opportunity to meet his father, Joe Biden, who was in charge of the Obama administration’s Ukraine policy at the time.
Hunter earned up to $1 million annually for serving on the Burisma board from 2014 to 2019.
The second article described Joe Biden’s alleged role in Hunter Biden and his uncle Jim Biden’s business venture with a Chinese company, CEFC China Energy, which was suspected to be part of Beijing’s “Belt and Road” foreign influence campaign.
What is your opinion? Do you believe there was collusion between the FBI and Twitter to censor the Hunter Biden laptop story at a critical point in the 2020 presidential election? Please share your thoughts by emailing [email protected]. Thank you.
